We had the yearly Garner family reunion today. A billion eaters, talkers, singers, organizers, all converging in one fellowship hall to again laugh at the unending joke that is just how many of us there are! We talked about long-gone relatives who believed in hard work and treating all people with respect when the prevailing wisdom said otherwise, we talked about fewer-than-three-months-gone relatives, we shushed babies and handed pens and napkins to restless children and made multiple passes at the dessert line and asked our aunts what everybody's name was.
At one point, most of our branch of the family went out to the playground. After a few minutes of play, Daniel excused himself to the restroom...
...whereupon he locked himself inside and couldn't figure out how to get out. He fretted greatly, believing we would leave him behind when we went home. Finally, Papa (aka Dan, our grandfather) heard him beating at the door and freed him. It was quite a study in generation gaps and family, this picture of a tall man in his Sunday suit carrying a weeping little boy in his church's T-shirt and silicon bracelet declaring the sermon series we're in. There were no misgivings, no sneering at the one's staunch traditionalism or the other's loud contemporariness.* Only sharing and security.
And they're both named Daniel. How about that.
*Yes, that's a word. I looked it up.
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